Landing a Cause to Engage Millennial and Gen Z Audiences

As Korean cuisine continues to take hold, Daesang saw growth potential for its Jongga Kimchi brand and sought to drive awareness via an authentic ESG campaign to connect more deeply with millennials and Gen Zs in the US and UK, and gain market share.

At the start of its sustainability journey and with low awareness on both sides of the Atlantic, Jongga wanted to raise its profile while pinpointing a relevant cause it could champion with meaning.

Challenge

‘Value spending’ has taken on new significance since the pandemic as millennials and Gen Zs shift away from individualism towards the greater good. But the trend for conscious consumerism in which shoppers chose brands which share their ideological values, works both ways. Consumers are equally swift to wield their power to boycott those which fall short. At the same time, ‘green fatigue’ from ubiquitous sustainability stories meant we needed to pinpoint a purpose Jongga could own authentically, but crucially would cut through the noise and earn our audience’s attention. 

Insight

We helped pinpoint a purpose the brand could champion with authenticity and relevance, creating cultural currency that would work for both the UK and the US.

This insight enabled us to link fermentation with preservation, presenting Jongga with a cause the brand could advocate for (and one which had not been granted much air time to date). The biodiversity crisis and the need to PRESERVE the plants on our plates.

This paved the way for our campaign platform, Generation Preservation born to rally Zillennials, raising awareness of shrinking biodiversity. 

Using the product – kimchi, the traditional Korean fermented cabbage dish - as our starting point, we connected fermentation to the theme of preservation. Fermentation is a technique used for centuries to preserve ingredients and has sustainability at its core. We saw this as an opportunity to educate Gen Z and millennial consumers on the history and importance fermented and preserved foods have in maintaining food supply, agricultural sustainability, and plant biodiversity.

Strategy

We launched Generation Preservation – a multi-pronged purpose-driven campaign aimed at driving brand awareness on both sides of the pond for Jongga Kimchi and its preservation efforts, bridging the gap between educating consumers about this important initiative while also driving buzz for its hero product, kimchi.

With our strategic approach in place, we built a tactical plan throughout a four-month timeline to execute our ideas in sequence across the US and UK markets. To raise awareness of the critical issue of shrinking biodiversity in the US and UK in an authentic way, we partnered with Seed Savers in the US and Garden Organic in the UK, both of whom work to preserve rare seeds.

These charity partnerships acted as the thread tying together our campaign tactics which included Preservation Kits (gifting) to generate buzz pre-launch, consumer survey and video to reach a mass audience, a series of free supper club events with media-worthy restaurants, a celebrity chef and paid influencer partnerships to reach our core audience of Gen Z and millennials. This was all underpinned with a media relations program to help raise awareness of Jongga on US / UK supermarket shelves to ultimately support sales. 

Execution

Jongga’s Generation Preservation campaign was born with a mission to bring diversity back to the dinner table… So that’s what we did:

a.    UK: Garden Organic, home to the Heritage Seed Library which saves and reintroduces rare seeds so that everyone has the chance to grow and enjoy fantastic forgotten foods.

i.    Created a hero film of the Heritage Seed Library, using Garden Organic’s experts to lend credibility to our purpose.

b.    US: Seed Savers which works to preserve heirloom plant varieties through regeneration, distribution, and seed exchange. It is one of the largest nongovernmental seedbanks in the US.

i.    Leveraged statistics for our press materials to help build further credibility for the campaign.

ii.    Posted about the campaign across the charity’s social channels

Preservation Kits

To kick off the campaign, we sent out Preservation Kits (gifting) with rare seeds to media and influencers to generate buzz. Each kit included Jongga Kimchi product, seeds from each respective organisation and details about the Generation Preservation campaign.

a.    UK: Leveraged kits to drum up excitement pre-launch with (paid) high reaching Gen MZ food influencers

b.    US: Leveraged kits to drive coverage upon launch with (organic) influencers and media

(P)reserve a Table Dinner Series and Chef Partnerships:

To give consumers the chance to enjoy biodiversity and sample a Jongga kimchi tasting menu which showcased the plight of endangered vegetables, we partnered with two popular sustainably-focused restaurants and their head chefs.

a.    UK: Apricity in London led by chef du jour, Chantelle Nicholson: We brokered a collaboration with the most talked about British chef in sustainability, Chantelle Nicholson, whose venue Apricity was receiving widespread critical acclaim. Hosted a sold-out supper club series at the newly opened sustainability-themed restaurant.

b.    US: Dirt Candy led by Chef Amanda Cohen: Hosted a sold-out three-night dinner series, kicking off with a media and influencer pre-view event, which coincided with the restaurant’s first Michelin Star Award announced during the first night of the supper club series.

Celebrity Chef Partner

To drive more earned media attention for the Jongga kimchi product and campaign in the US, we partnered with Celebrity Chef, TV Personality and Author Kristen Kish. Kristen Kish’s Korean background and inventive culinary craft helped generate even more awareness of this mission and the delicious versatility that kimchi provides. Kristen helped amplify the campaign by:

a.    Creating two unique recipes featuring Jongga Kimchi

b.    Shared social media posts featuring Jongga Kimchi and the Generation Preservation Campaign

c.    Participated in a media day where she spoke with top-tier media about the campaign and how she uses Jongga kimchi in her recipes.

Results

Jongga Kimchi was able to champion a cause which inextricably linked its product to its purpose - with relevance and authenticity. We landed on the magic formula - identifying a cause within the sustainability space that audiences could get behind, but which crucially was under-exposed allowing us to create a movement and generate serious news appeal for #JonggaGenP.

Despite the death of a monarch interrupting campaign timings, KPIs were knocked out of the park.

Across the UK, US and Seoul, the campaign had a total potential reach of:

a)   1.4+ billion earned media impressions.

b)   422 earned media placements

c)    74 social media placements across the campaign, including the (P)reserve a Table events

d)   31.3% average reach rate across paid influencer partnerships with 12.1% ER